Back in the glory days, when Sam Phillips or Jack Clement had an artist in the studio this is how things happened: The producer would start the tape rolling and the artist would record multiple takes or versions of each song. Often the tape was never stopped and as a result some session dialog or “chatter” as we call it was captured to tape. The producer (usually Sam) would coach the artist(s) on their performance in between takes and help them get the best performance. Then, when they thought they had it right, they would go back into the control room and listen to all the various takes and pick the one that they thought was best. That particular recording of the song would get sent to the pressing plant and would become the single release. Meanwhile, the other unused recordings were stuck in a box on the shelf.

Over the years, these boxes piled up, and eventually became the Sun Records Tape Vault. Some of these “Alternate Takes” or “Out-Takes” have been released over the years on collector’s packages or box sets, but there are some that haven’t. We’re considering opening the vault again and releasing some of these alternate-takes and we’d like your input.

To be clear, these are not new songs, but different recordings of popular songs that have already been released. The alternate-take might be a different tempo… have a different guitar solo… be sung a little differently, or stop halfway through because someone forgot the lyrics. Some of them offer a new look at how the song developed in the studio, and can seem kind of like an “audio time-capsule”.